20 Questions: Erica L. Mayer, MD, MPH

[CaffeinatedSquirrel]

Please discuss!

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[EMDO2018]

Wow, a specialist who had a father as a physician, has a physician as a husband, took out no loans ( daddy probably aid for everything), has kids and a seemingly good wlb. Privileged life. Why don't they do interviews with a few D.O. s? Or maybe a few people who actually had challenges in life. And for gods sake interview somebody who had loan debt. 90% of these interviewees had little or no loans.

 

[tantacles]

I just want to highlight the following two answers, which are clearly contradictory:

Clinic day: get to work by 7:30 a.m. See patients until 5:30 p.m. – try to get billing and as many notes as possible done before the end of the day. Get home by 6 p.m., put my kids to bed by 8 p.m., then work on research projects until too tired to work more. Research day: get kids ready for school, leave home at 7:30 a.m., get to work by 8 a.m. The day is spent mostly working on writing, data analysis, slide making, etc. punctuated by meetings. Get home by 6 p.m., kids in bed by 8 p.m., work on clinical work afterwards.

So essentially, she works at the office from 7:30-5:30, has a two hour "break" when she puts her kids into bed, and then works and works and works.

I work about 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day on average. I try to sleep six to seven hours a night. I take about three full weeks of vacation a year, but try to turn off from work on the weekends as well.

Well, this is a change of pace. I'm pretty sure she said she worked all the time. Didn't she?

I'd just like to see an honest article where a physician actually pins down the number of hours he/she works. We've had them in the past. Why not again?

 

[DermViser]

Wow, a specialist who had a father as a physician, has a physician as a husband, took out no loans ( daddy probably aid for everything), has kids and a seemingly good wlb. Privileged life. Why don't they do interviews with a few D.O. s? Or maybe a few people who actually had challenges in life. And for gods sake interview somebody who had loan debt. 90% of these interviewees had little or no loans.

Uh, why would it be any different if the doctor was an MD vs. DO? Do you really think that specialist D.O.s treat their patients differently? I do agree with you about the loan issue. SDN tends to interview too many doctors whose entire medical school tuition was paid by his/her parents - definitely not the norm.

 

[MedWonk]

I'm a little confused how working on average 8 to 530 results in difficulty balancing work and personal life. This sounds like a pretty great schedule to me. She's either not being very forthcoming with how much she actually works, or she's calling working banker's hours difficult which would be laughable at best.

Also, this quote: "I was inspired by his connection with patients and the intersection of science and humanism."
If she truly still holds this idealism, then kudos to her for holding onto it. Maybe her field and the fact she's in academia allows one to hold on to more of the idealism that led her to medicine in the first place, but I would be more curious how she feels about the profession now that she's in it. Otherwise, I feel like I'm reading every personal statement ever.

I wish better questions were asked that weren't all softballs, otherwise it seems like most physicians interviewed will give PC answers that don't really shed much light on the challenges and realities of the profession. Isn't the purpose of these interviews to help pre-meds/med students get an idea of what it's like to actually be in the profession and in different specialties/practice settings?

 

[TheWeeIceMan]

Anyone know where SDN get's these physicians to interview? I know at least a few of them have been big posters on here, so I always figured most of them were found through the forums.

 

[kkinase]

I do recall the free lance author posting in every specialty forum asking for people who would want to be interviewed. Probably was 6months-1yr ago I think.